Tamarack (Moscow Mountain)

University of Idaho wildlife professor Ken Hungerford led a group that, after studying snowpack records with students, set up a ski area on the east side of Moscow Mountain, about six or seven miles northwest of Troy. With borrowed money they built a three-story A-frame lodge with a rental shop and lunch counter, and volunteers, many from the university, formed the ski patrol. The lifts began running in January 1966 as Moscow Mountain Ski Area, and it took the name Tamarack that fall. A T-bar and a rope tow served about 600 feet of vertical, topping out near 4,400 feet, and it drew students from Moscow and Pullman.^1,2,3,4

Low elevation meant uneven snow, and plowing the road and running a diesel generator kept costs high. The owning corporation defaulted in 1971, and a string of owners ran it now and then through the following decades. Owed back taxes, the leasehold went to auction in February 1992 without a bidder; the T-bar was sold that April to Cottonwood Butte, and the lodge was later torn down.^1,2,3,5

TodayThe lodge is gone; only its parking lot remains, used by visitors to Moscow Mountain. (2021)³